Language Barriers
by Moonlighter
Summary: From the Moonlighter archives: A day in the life of (what used to be) the never-ending process of reconcilliation between Crystal and Pietro. Luna learns a bad word, Crystal wants more attention, and Pietro can't get a break. Originally written to take place after the Quicksilver solo series.


_Disclaimer:_

_Follows a work of fanfiction intended for entertainment purposes only, the creation and publication of which earns its author no monetary profit. All recognizable characters and referenced canonical events are property of Marvel Comics Incorporated. Or Disney, whatever. Or Fox. I absolutely cannot keep track._

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><p><span><strong>Language Barriers<strong>

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><p>"By the way," Crystal fixed her estranged husband under a scrutinizing sidelong gaze, "what does <em>gadje<em> mean?"

While his estranged wife had not quite butchered the pronunciation, Pietro performed his renowned Indifferent Upturn Of The Nose routine for many reasons.

"In what context?"

Crystal shifted to face him full on. Never one to shirk confrontation, he reciprocated the motion, looking down unexcitedly to match her narrowing stare. She was shorter than she carried herself, regal and appointed, and she stood now on that proverbial pedestal as though she had been born there.

"'That squeaky pigtailed _gadje_ brat in my class,'" she said, an impressive imitation of their daughter's voice.

Prudently, Pietro did not permit even the faintest resemblance of a smile anywhere near the vicinity of his face – no matter how much of himself he saw in Luna sometimes. He crowned his perfectly furrowed brow with a solemn nod and intoned, "I will have stern words with her."

With a roll of her eyes, imitating how she had every faith in her own far superior disciplinary skills, betraying how she hated that their daughter jumped when daddy said frog, Crystal folded her arms. "You shouldn't have to – and I shouldn't have to ask you not to teach our four year old child bad language."

"Nor would I do such a reprehensible thing."

"Right, so she learned how to name-call in Romindy-"

"_Romani_."

"…yes that, from whom else then? Captain America? Jarvis?"

"Obviously she overheard it from me, or from Wanda I suppose, but I can assure you no one taught it to her. So I will teach her not to say it, and from now on that poor girl in Luna's class will have to suffer being called names she actually understands the meaning of, just like the rest of us."

Despite seeing his point, Crystal stopped short of parting with her own, like debating between shoes that fit and shoes that matched.

Her wavering mood caught Pietro's sharp eye, and he shrugged off his own façade of seriousness to continue lighter, "Besides, I thought we were not allowed to argue anymore. You taught me the pinky-swear for it, no less."

Her features softening further at the memory, she replied, "If I remember right, the agreement was to 'get along'. If we resolve an argument civilly, it shouldn't count."

"Well in that case," he had managed to inch towards her undetected, standing now close enough that Crystal finally noticed he had traversed their customary several feet worth of Marital Estrangement space, "I must say, you were being a bit aggressive with me." His smirk did not testify to any dissatisfaction in the fact. "But honoring our vow of civility, I would readily accept an apology – or bribery. I prefer bribery."

Of course their marriage would mostly be considered estranged because neither of them kept track of quite where their longwinded courtship of reconciliation had last left off. So Pietro would test the waters, because that was his duty, and if the coast were clear, Crystal would play hard to get, because that was her wont. It is a crazy relative of normal flirtation.

She had been fighting back a smile and teetered now on the brink of defeat. Clearly distracted -clearly- she rested a hand below his collarbone, idly tracing its curvature. There were better signs, but these held promise. "How about you tell me what it means, I'll say I'm sorry, and then we call it even?"

"Oh. Well."

In an instant he returned to his prior occupation: examining several maps spread over the conference table. He seemed just as promptly to forget she was even there.

Crystal stood blinking. "Wow. Is it that bad?"

"What? Oh. No no, not really." A planimeter and one particularly complex region of a map held his studious regard.

Whenever he came home to officially visit Luna, he made it a point to offer his services to the Royal Family in whatever capacity they might deem useful, which made his traditional testing of the Disaffected Matrimony waters more opportune. If Crystal was not in the mood to humor the Reconciliation Effort they had been ordained to make, his next visit would be unofficial, meaning no one save Luna and Lockjaw and a few sympathetic palace guardsmen even knew he was there. Except Blackbolt, who knew everything.

This time, the Royals had tasked him to survey the broader landscape and refine their territorial mapping system. This time, Crystal was a comparatively mild blend of contrasting summer warmth and clammy formalities – combined with her unsettling habit of honing in on one subject outside of Pietro's comfort zone, dragging it into the light, and demanding he sacrifice it for her on the altar of Trust.

"So that's it? You won't even teach me one word?" With an indignant 'tsk', the queen came down from her pedestal, and the princess climbed onto her soapbox. "This is so typical of you, Pietro – this is exactly the problem between us. You're teaching Luna an entire 'secret language' before she's even mastered English, but you won't teach me one measly word. And whenever something like this comes up, you just shut down on me. We should be past this."

Tallying how much work he still needed to finish before tomorrow's next survey, Pietro chose the fastest path through this argument that they shouldn't even be having, which was no longer about what it was supposed to be about anyway. "It means 'non-gypsy', basically, although I suspect Luna interpreted it in the less polite sense, indicating she considers her classmate something of a yokel, a dummy if you will."

"Lovely."

"On the positive side, our daughter is bright enough to discern the meaning of one unknown word in what must have been a semi-incoherent _Romani_ outburst, and proceed to apply it correctly in a sentence. Quite impressive, you must agree."

"I'm so glad this makes you proud."

"Everything she does makes me proud, it's my genetic disposition as her father. But I'm merely trying to focus on whatever good can be found in an otherwise unfortunate situation."

"No, you're trying to change the subject."

"What subject?"

Crystal sighed, plopping herself into a chair at the table. Pietro relocated his notepad and tools to his opposite side to make room for her, and continued working. For a while she just sat watching him go at it. He always had to be busy with something – it drove her mad when they lived together full time. He insisted it was a side-effect of his mutant powers, that he would go stir crazy unless his mind or body were occupied. She used to believe him; she used to yearn for and savor the times when he would occupy himself with **her** instead, and she used to be content with that much, little as it seemed – maybe if not for Maximus' twisted influence on them both back then, that's how it still would be.

Over the years though, she had grown to wonder if Pietro's infuriating state of perpetual motion didn't have as much to do with this odd, innate compulsion to serve a constant purpose, as though securing a place for himself through indispensability. When it worked out, it worked fine – but it only worked at all so long as he felt however he needed the busywork and responsibilities and skills to make him feel. Assimilated or loved or worthy or whatever It was – she didn't know. She didn't know that having a successful marriage with the man would require professional grade operating knowledge of human psychology. He must not have either…and he would scoff at the term 'human'. So here they were: Marital Hit And Miss.

She spoke defeatedly from under her hand where her head rested, "Us, Pietro. It's not about Luna or that girl she doesn't like or some derogatory word in a dead language. It's about us."

Stretched over the table, he craned his neck to look back at her. Lasting more than two seconds as it did, his pause must have been deliberate. "Yes, dear – I really am rather quick, you know."

"Never mind. I was trying to talk to you, but if you're going to be like this…just never mind."

She was already headed for the door when he said, "You started it." She kept walking.

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><p>"It is not a dead language."<p>

Crystal had to clutch her book out of mid air where she involuntarily hurled it in a startled jolt, next catching her breath enough to gasp, "What?"

"Dead languages are those no longer learned and spoken as a native tongue. _Romani_ is my native tongue along with uncounted others', hence, not a dead language."

"What on earth are you…?" Peering through the lamplight into the shadowed doorway where her husband stood, Crystal finally sighed, remembering the end of their earlier conversation that she had spent the rest of the afternoon trying to forget. "Did you really come here to school me on the proper classification of a language I'm not even allowed to know?" Never mind that Crystal had never in fact asked to learn it, as Luna had.

"Yes. Because this _is_ about the language, which is about me, which is about Luna, which is about us – you never understood how all things are inextricably connected. Well. I thought you used to. I thought we understood each other."

He was out of uniform, Crystal noticed, his compulsive preparedness repressed by linen pants, an unbuttoned shirt, and bare feet. This was not the man who left her first or the one she reconciled with later or the one she left last. That man had donned armor of soldierly discipline many years ago and no longer spoke of understanding or the incorporeal connectedness of the universe. No, this was the man she knew foremost. The one who emerged like a phoenix reborn from his broken and bloodied cocoon as some unfathomable creature of speed and pride and mystique and marriage proposals. The one who stole her breath and heart away so fast she barely saw him coming or going. This was the man she knew by now maybe least of all.

His gaze remained low and sideways and he stood utterly still. He must have been deep in thought – or else time itself had stopped. At last he stirred, blinked, and shifted to stand at the opposite of ease with hands clasped behind his back. "No matter. I put Luna to bed."

"I know. Uhm, I heard you reading to her from down the hall. I would have come in, but it's been so hard for her to fall asleep lately, I didn't want to get her worked up again." Luna was like a puppy during her father's visits, bright-eyed and full of excitement. When both of her parents were with her 'together' such as it were, she could barely contain herself.

"She did have difficulty at first." A faint smile came to Pietro, and he leaned without applying much weight against the door frame, semi-relaxed again. "I think she tried humoring me eventually, but I kept reading even though her eyes were closed and I'm certain she did not last until the end."

"Which story was that? I didn't recognize it."

"Snow White and the Seven _Gadje_."

"Pietro. That's not funny."

"No. Well. Hardly." He rubbed away something that could not be identified as a proper smirk, disguising the motion by running that hand through his hair. "So. Good night then." He turned to leave, stopped, and turned back. "Crystal, I'm sorry. It was a bad time for me earlier, I was preoccupied and hurrying. I should have asked to meet with you later, I'm sure you would have understood, there was no reason for me to be difficult. And it was… sweet of you to visit me. I hope you will accept my apology."

He appeared completely serious –as usual– but there was more, something different. This was not the same onerous Obligatory Apology that she had come to expect and detest from her estranged husband. This was new. But old habits die hard, sometimes kicking and screaming.

"…have you been drinking?"

After an initial bristle followed by a deliberate deep breath, Pietro replied evenly, "Now who is being difficult? Remind me what it is that people say about two wrongs…"

"Okay okay, you're right." She crossed and uncrossed her legs. "Sorry. I guess I'm not funny either."

"Apology accepted," he said, without a period at the end.

Crystal took the hint. "Apology accepted. Thank you."

He crossed the ever-present invisible chasm of Marital Estrangement space and bent at the waist to kiss her temple. "Good night."

"Uhm, so tomorrow?"

"I will be away most of the day, surveying."

"Dinner then? I was thinking just us three, here."

"That would be nice."

It would be nice to kneel into the envelope of her soft embrace, her sweet smell, take her into his arms and carry her to the bed. Lay her out upon silken sheets like a gift so cherished and unwrap her as gratefully. It would be nice to exercise his damned unending merciless wanderlust upon the contours of her body for a change, to lose himself exploring their shared pleasures and secret places, to find himself lying next to her all drained and silly and content. It would be nice to sleep in peace and wake in company. It would be nice to do what married people do.

Once upon a time, that's how nights like this would have ended, back when Pietro considered himself a much different person. That young man's senior, the son of Magneto, stood now battle hardened and time tested and fire tried, homesick for the family he always wanted and weary of the long winding road that his life has become.

Towards redemption, God willing -if never closer to home, God forbid- Pietro set foot back on that road and carried on alone.

"Until tomorrow."

_**~fin~**_


End file.
